Kizeo Forms - Blog

How to digitalize your daily construction site progress reports?

Written by Kavitha Ramamurthy | Oct 31, 2019 4:00:00 AM

Anne-Cecile Duperou

Enterprise Project Deployment Manager
Etchart reseaux

The mobile solution that automates your daily progress reports on site work!

In this case study, Anne-Cécile, Head of Enterprise Project Deployment, explains the reasons that led Etchart réseaux to choose Kizeo Forms to automate their daily progress reports on site work.

A multidisciplinary group that is open to the digitalization of its activities.

The Etchart Group, a construction company in the southwest of France, is backed by its expertise in 12 major trades in the sector and the expertise of 1,240 employees. With a turnover of nearly 350 million, the group continues to expand; to achieve this, it mainly relies on the digitalization of its businesses. Among the group's businesses, we find, for example, the construction industry. This entity is made up of companies specialized in:

  • The construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of water, thermal and telecommunications network infrastructures.

  • Trenchless rehabilitation (RCR), hydraulic and pumping equipment (Opure), road trades and urban development.

  • The supply of materials or the production of asphalt mixes.

The challenges: Simplifying information flow and optimizing production tools.

The interventions and projects carried out by Etchart Réseaux can last from a few hours ( emergency work, repairs, after-sales service, etc.) to several weeks or even several months. One of the main difficulties, says Anne-Cécile, Head of Enterprise Project Deployment, is to quickly collect and disseminate information within the sector.

Our teams work on sites that are often far from their branch and do not visit the office on a daily basis. Therefore, we required a fast and fluid data transmission system.

The development of digital tools on site, to improve the productivity and strengthen our expertise, was one of the challenges of our Business Project.

Daily progress reports on site work with Kizeo Forms!

Etchart Réseaux tried the mobility solution, Kizeo Forms, for a few weeks. To make the right decision, they assigned a site manager responsible for using the solution in real field conditions. Etchart réseaux attaches great importance to the opinion of end users. It is therefore essential for the group to try all the solutions to be implemented in a realistic situations.

The first impressions were positive: a tool that was easy for the user to learn, flexible and that allowed to develop the forms themselves and at their pace. And above all a tool that worked in offline mode! The deployment of Kizeo Forms within the company took a few weeks.

First, it was necessary to define parameters on the online platform (creation of users, design forms, exports). In a second step, Etchart Réseaux has equipped itself with the essential mobile devices: smartphones, tablets, telephone subscriptions... As a result of these actions, Kizeo Forms was gradually deployed in the field, agency by agency. All users have been trained on their own media (smartphones, tablets, etc.)

It was important to be able to support each user and capitalize on the feedback.

A corporate social group has been set up as part of the Corporate Social Network (CSR).  In other words, it allows all employees to be informed quickly: about network pole news, applicable procedures, database updates, new forms available but also to exchange on their tips or possible difficulties of use. In this way, they can be surveyed on the advantages or disadvantages of setting up a specific type of form.

The use cases of Kizeo Forms.

Before the use of Kizeo Forms within Etchart Réseaux companies, the collection of field information was not fast, fluid and efficient enough (e.g. loss of information, lack of homogeneity and reliability of the data collected). In short, it had to deal with all the disadvantages of handwritten data capture on remote sites.

Kizeo Forms is mainly used to fill in standard forms ( site logs, site test reports, machine use records, machine checks, intervention reports). Anne-Cécile informed us that this tool is also used to conduct user surveys, for example, to collect tooling and equipment needs. Offline operation is vital.

There are a dozen of active forms and a few forms in pre-deployment testing. Their field teams regularly send us suggestions for the creation of new forms.

It was first decided to convert the forms that were used in paper format to Kizeo Forms. Users quickly made suggestions for improvements or the creation of new forms; in short, Kizeo Forms is a multi-functional application. This allows to create forms tailored to your needs. Most interesting features: The offline mode, the ability to attach photos or geolocation when entering data.

 

In short, the strong points of the solution are:

  • The user experience: Simple and intuitive to use
  • Secondly, the quality of the information reported (no more problems with proofreading, no more missing data, etc.)
  • Real-time data transfers: the export is directly sent to the right recipient
  • It is also an agile system
  • Save time and money